Vessel in Distress
by ASummerBreeze
Summary: The ship is sinking and Rose and Jack have been separated. Looking for the love of her life, she finds Cal cowering in a hallway, and they say goodbye. Rated for lemon! Not for Cal haters.
1. Chapter 1

Vessel In Distress

AN-

I have been disappointed at the lack of Rose/Cal stories for a while but I was really surprised that the smutty stories that do exist were all non-con. This is a mix of dubcon and consensual smut, I like to consider it a sort of deleted scene.

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Rose wasn't sure how it had happened, or when it had, really. One moment she had been with Jack and a group of others trying to find a way around a crowded, locked gate and the next she was wondering the halls near the first class dining saloon, searching for him. The ship was diving further into the ocean, and it was almost impossible to reach some of the forward areas, with water rushing up around them all by the minute. She had to laugh, despite herself, thinking of that phrase, 'rats on a sinking ship', because that was exactly what it felt like, and she might be insulted by the use of the phrase if she survived to hear it again.

Rounding a corner, thinking she had taken a shortcut aft, she realized somehow she had gotten mixed up and gone forward. The hallway flooded worse ahead, and turning around, she saw nothing but white walls and carpets that had not been soaked yet. Nothing except one lone figure huddled up there in an expensive suit. She knew it was Cal almost immediately, from the tufts of hair sticking through his fingers and the cut of the coat he was wearing, and he looked up when he heard her heels clicking, causing her to freeze and look apprehensively at him.

This was, after all, the very man that had chased her and her lover down with a pistol only moments ago. But he was in shambles. His eyes were red and moist, and his hands, one still holding Lovejoy's gun, were shaking. She sighed deeply and walked over with more strength in her step, reaching down to offer him her hand. "Cal, you shouldn't be sitting down here. You have to try and get to a boat." He swatted her away and quickly hid his face. "I'm not…worth this, all right? I'm not who you all want me to be. I'm not a goddamn lady."

_I'd rather be his whore than your wife._

She was surprised when he burst into laughter and she frowned, crossing her arms over herself, suddenly overcome by the chill of the chip with the heat off. She had been soaking in ice water so long now that being out of it was almost unbearable. "Rose there aren't any boats. They're loading the last boat that is not collapsible and I'll be damned if I end up on….well, I suppose we're both damned then, aren't we?" He shook his head, his eyes full of disgust. "Leave me be."

"No." She bent and wrapped both her arms around one of his, heaving to get him off of the floor with all of her might. "I won't let you die on my account. Don't be so ridiculous!"

Angered at her insistence, he shot to his feet and towered over her. She was surprised by his sudden cooperation and nearly fell over, and she stared up at him with huge, frightened eyes. Cal shook his head. "You were not this person when I brought you on this ship," Stepping forward, she stepped back instinctively, and found that he had backed her into one of the walls. "You were not this distant from me when it was just us. When you agreed to be my wife." He bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers. Her first instinct acted, she shoved at him to get him off, but the familiar warmth of his kiss reminded her of Paris and of Venice and the half dozen cities they had visited shortly after his proposal. It was all true. Until she had realized the finality of the engagement, she had been warmed up to the courtship. Only when he had loaded her up for America and her duties as his child-bearing wife in Pennsylvania had she started to distance herself. After all, she had gone to the stern to kill herself, finding Jack had been a complete accident. But in a way, in every way, it had been serendipity.

"Cal, please." She whispered, breaking the kiss. "Think of those days if you must, but don't die here. Not like this."

"Do you know how I would like to die, Rose?" She jumped when his hands slid down her sides and over her belly, caressing the curves of her body through her water-logged dress and setting her skin on fire. He bent to kiss along her jaw, up to her ear and he whispered, "Buried deep within you." Her mouth trembled, because it was something Caledon Hockley would never say in a public hallway on a sinking ship, and yet, he had just said it. She managed to tilt her head to look at him, really look at him and she regretted it when their eyes met and she saw passion that she had never seen before there.

One hand moved to cup her breast and massaged her erect nipple through the material of her underlying chemise. She wanted to blame it on the cold and having waded through that water so much, but she wasn't sure right just then. He kissed her again, hard, demanding and his tongue forced it's way into her mouth, but was joined by her own in sweet abandon. She slid her hands under his jacket and along the fine silk shirt, scratched very slightly over his ribs and up onto his back, and he moaned into her mouth.

She had only just been intimate with Jack and she _loved_ Jack, she knew she didn't love Cal, and yet, she wanted to feel him. She wasn't sure how much she wanted, but she was pretty satisfied in that moment. And then one of his hands dipped down between her legs and cupped her womanhood through the thin, purple material and she gasped aloud. The sound rang through the empty hall, and he immediately hiked her skirts up to expose her bare sex to all of the death that surrounded them. Water began sloshing around their shoes as the hall flooded more, but Cal didn't even notice. He was too busy undoing his trousers.

She didn't even care, she was so curious and so incredibly aroused by his hands and his mouth and the terrible thing he had just said. She slid her arms around his shoulders and he hoisted her up and pressed her more firmly against the wall, kissing her deeply. She was his in that moment and he savored that sensation, nipping sharply at the corners of her mouth. Before Rose can process that they're about to make love in a hallway on a sinking ship, she feels familiar pressure at her entrance and her eyes meet his as the world around them dissolves to stars.

Gasping at the feeling of being sheathed in her body, Cal thrusts furiously into her. She doesn't move except to return his nips and she doesn't try to push him away. Part of her knows how wrong it is, she loves Jack. She has only ever loved Jack but there is a darkness in Cal that she has seen in herself ever since the day she found out that her father had left them nothing but debt. A darkness that wants something that her birthright has expressly forbid her for seventeen years. Cal's panting brouht her out of her thought and she stared up into his dark eyes as he pumped against her. Water was now around his ankles, and rushing into the hall faster and faster, mimicking his own buildup as he makes love to her.

Suddenly, she there was peace. She was not concerned with the fact that she is in love, or that Jack would be upset at this union. Cal leaned in for a kiss and Rose offered it first, swallowing his mouth in love that she had always denied him. He murmured something into the secret nothingness that she held over him, and she kissed him again, more gently, this time. Their eyes opened to meet one last time and suddenly, his eyes slammed shut again. He gasped in a way she had never heard, and his brows furrowed as his body still inside of her, twitching only every other moment. Rose realized that he had reached his plateau, and was emptying himself inside of her. The world is gone, the ship doesn't matter, and he is not the same man that had slapped her two hours ago. Now, he loves her. That matters.

For a moment, probably longer than she realized, he stayed connected to her and they just breathed together. Her head was at rest against the wall and his was against her breast. She knew it was over, because now, she was useless to him. As soon as he realized the same, he pulled away and slowly, gently, lowered her to the floor. By then, water flows around her knees and she let out a surprised squeak, pulling her dress down into it to hide the fact that it had ever been up. Looking up at Cal, she catches his gaze only briefly, his eyes are full of finality. The water was forgotten one last time as she watched him turn and hurry up a nearby stairwell to hurry up to catch the collapsible boat he had told her about.

It's too late by then.

Tears overwhelmed her vision as the realization that death was near overcame her. Somehow, she managed to push through the flooding hall to a drier place aft, and turning only twice, she ran right into Jack, who cursed, and then shouted. "I've been looking for you! What happened!" Jack was a pretty decent observer and her paleness alarmed him immediately, and he grabbed her face. She remembered Cal's hands on her hips as he thrust himself inside of her, and she shuddered. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Patting his back, she pointed to the ceiling. "Let's go! I don't think we have a lot of time left!" She was right, the boats were gone. Cal was gone. But Jack knew how to keep her alive. They ran to the stern, climbed the railing and rode that beast right into the water until they swam to try and make it. He found driftwood that would hold her weight above water, but climbing on proved useless to him, it sunk just enough to keep them wet, which would kill them both.

Her heart broke when he decided to die for her rather than with her, although she had every hope that he would live and teach her to live without the money. There was a niggling guilt in the back of her brain as she lay there, singing to herself and as she tried to forget that the future of Hockley Steel was frozen from the cold between her thighs. She tried to pretend that a boat would come and save them soon enough, and one did, but it was too late for poor, sweet Jack. He had a light in him that she had yearned to feel, and she had for a few blissful moments earlier that night. Letting him go was the hardest thing she ever did, but she had made him a promise and she had promised never to let go of that promise.

It wasn't long after the sinking that she had learned that Cal had survived. A part of her wanted to find him and thrive in the damn money and that familiar, warm darkness. She realized, however, that there was no sense in that. She needed to find a different source of light to survive in this world. Still, at one point she had stopped by Cal's long enough so he knew she had lived too, and she had placed the diamond that she had found in her pocket back into his care. "I believe this belongs to Mrs. Hockley, Cal." He had stared at her in a way that had boiled her blood.

It was better this way. She always had that hallway on that sinking ship, just as she always had that old Renault in a perfectly peaceful ship. Being seventeen had had it's moments, she preferred to keep them locked in a sort of safe and moved on with her life. There was only so much life threatening drama that one person could take before they would struggle to make their life count. Rose had no intention of ever jeopardizing that.


	2. PLEASE READ

Note regarding 's purge of M rated material.

This story, as well as my others that feature MA content will be reposted to in order to preserve it. If you have enjoyed my MA material on this site, please follow it there. I hate to have to do this but I do not want for my stories, or God help me, my account to be deleted because of this. I was around for the previous adult content witch hunt, and it wasn't fun.

Thanks for your understanding, your kind reviews here and hopefully, your views on the new server. It's a shame since I was so excited about making a couple of these M rated stories cover art, but I guess that's how it goes these days.


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